Tools which track users' activities and process and require a lot of discretionary input are prone to deliberate or accidental misuse by users. While many tools have input fields that, when filled out, can provide useful information to management, they are usually ignored by users and remain empty. For example, a tool from IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® provides a documentation field for the users' input, but depending on the kind of defect fix, these fields may or may not be set as mandatory fields (IBM, Rational, and ClearQuest are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both). If not set as mandatory fields, they might not always be filled out by the users.
In addition, the tools may include estimation fields which are free flowing text. New users or new corners into the organization may not even be aware of the process and might never fill in these fields. Since the fields are optional, it is impossible to catch the violation until it is discovered by brute force methods or discovered accidentally after the damage has been done. For example, it may be difficult to catch a violation where a defect fix which required documentation never had any documentation because user never set the “documentation required” field to “mandatory.” Analyzing the difference between the behaviors of the different users is also an issue with the current tools. Most tools are not smart enough to realize similar mistakes made by similar users.